


Sharks and Polaroids

by wavydanrises



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Merman Lance, Photography Student Keith, idk it's my first voltron fic i did my best, the ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 16:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11832666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavydanrises/pseuds/wavydanrises
Summary: Based on the ask sent by @/buttsareprettycooliguess to @/cryopods on tumblr “Mermaid!klance where keef is a photography student taking shots of the ocean, and comes across a friendly merbro who knows spanish and offers to pretend to be a dolphin for some Aesthetic Pics™"





	Sharks and Polaroids

Keith sat down at the top of a mound, trying to avoid getting too much sand in his camera. He loved photography -  that’s why he was majoring in it - but when a project counted for a quarter of his grade for the semester, that was making him a little bit nervous. And, of course, his reaction to that had been to wait until the last minute. Classic. He really needed to get good ones today, or he would probably never show up to class again.

He took a few pictures, but wasn’t fully satisfied with them. They were too… casual. He decided to wait until sunset, it should add that spark that was missing. And if not, well, he was screwed.

He sighed. He should’ve learned to do work before it was too late long ago. He looked back at the sea, mesmerized by the movement of the waves. Five, maybe ten minutes passed before something caught his eye. He focused back on the water, unable to tell what he noticed.

There! There had been something shiny, too big to be a fish. There weren’t any fishes here anyway.

Keith got up on his feet, leaving the camera in the bag, and walked down the mound of sand until he was standing at the very edge of the water. He searched for a few minutes more, his heart racing with adrenaline from the unknown, but there was nothing to be seen. He sighed again, and was about to turn around when something came out of the water.

A  _head_  came out of the water. Attached to shoulders, and a torso. With brown hair, brown skin, and brown eyes - no,  _blue_  eyes, as deep as the sea.

There was no way someone had been underwater for so long. Not someone human. Keith was pretty sure he was having hallucinations, probably from staying in the sun too long. But then, it  _talked_.

“Hey,” the creature said. “What are you doing here?”

Keith took a step back and nearly tripped.

“What the fuck,” he breathed. “It’s talking.”

“Excuse you, Mr. I’m-a-photography-student, I’m a  _“he”_. Damn, didn’t your parents teach you some manners ?”

“You’re a mermaid, you’re a fucking mermaid. That’s not possible.”

“Wait, what does mermaid mean again? I can’t tell if you’re insulting me or- ohh no alright, my bad. I remembered. English never makes any sense.” He shook his head, sending droplets of water everywhere.

“Wait,” Keith took another step ahead. “Does that mean mermaids have their own language?”

“What? No, man,” he laughed. “I’m cuban. I speak spanish. Well english too, of course. ‘Do mermaids have their own language’, I can’t believe you asked that,” he laughed again. “As if humans all spoke the same language.”

“Hey, stop laughing at me. Sorry if I haven’t met a mermaid before,” Keith replied, slightly on the defensive.

He must have noticed, because he stopped and swam a bit closer.

“Sorry, you’re right. I mean, that  _was a stupid question but I guess I can’t really blame you. I’m Lance, by the way.”_

“Keith.”

“Alright, Keith. I don’t usually show up because, you know, yelling and terror and all that, but I’m curious. What are you doing here? It’s been, like half an hour, and you haven’t done anything but stare at the water.”

Keith was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that he was talking to  _an actual mermaid_. Or a merman, rather. That was not supposed to happen. He took a few seconds before being able to answer.

“As you said, I’m a photography student. And I need some pictures of landscapes, so yeah. That’s it.”

“I’ve seen you take a few pics already,” Lance narrowed his eyes. “Weren’t you happy with them?”

“No,” Keith shook his head. “They weren’t good. Something was off. I decided to wait for the sunset.”

Lance seemed to think about it for a moment. Keith’s head was buzzing with questions and he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that this conversation was happening. And he couldn’t believe the discussion he was having with a merman was about  _photography_. What was he doing?

“Y’know what,” Lance spoke up. “Your sunset isn’t going to change much. But guess what could?”

Keith raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“A  _dolphin”_

“Dude, that’s not-”

“Not a  _real_  dolphin, of course,” Lance moved his hand -why did he look like he was sitting? - and pushed his hair out of his face. “Honestly, sharks are cooler anyway, and I can’t believe you’re blaming them for so much? They just have big teeth and bad sight, they’re doing their best, if you just-”

“Lance? Back to the point?” Keith almost smiled.

Alright, his dedication to the sharks’ case was cute, but Keith couldn’t stay here all day.

“Yeah, sorry sorry. What I was saying is, dolphins would be too proud and snob to come here anyway, but I mean I have a fish tail that could kinda look like a dolphin if you don’t look too close. If you think that could help?”

“If I think that could help? Dude, that would get me the best grade I could hope for! You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Nah,” Lance smiled. “Not at all. It’d be kinda cool, actually, I don’t always get to have a human audience and, well, fishes aren’t very chatty, you know how it is.”

Keith might’ve smiled a little at that, but not for more than a second. He kind of hoped Lance hadn’t noticed.

“Alright, then. I’ll grab my camera.”

He almost ran up the mound and took it from the bag. When he turned around to look back at the sea, Lance gave him a thumbs up before diving. Keith got his camera ready, and waited for Lance to show up again.

*

Keith was sitting cross-legged on his bed, looking through the pictures he had taken. Most of them were unusable because blurry, but a few would be amazing. It did look like a dolphin, or close enough that people wouldn’t question it when he would say that.

He looked at the last picture he had. This one was part of the couple polaroids he took, just to try and see how it would turn out. They were all too bad to be used for anything, except for one. Keith didn’t remember taking this one, Lance must have taken it without him noticing. He was somehow simultaneously winking, grinning with his whole face, and doing finger guns at the camera. Keith didn’t even know one person could express that many things with their face at one given moment. He turned it around, to see something scribbled on the back.

_come back some time it’s getting lonely with just the fishes here. there’s only so much admiration they can express at all my tricks. i could introduce you to a cool shark_

Keith smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! my voltron blog on tumblr is @ cosykeith


End file.
